Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
How much does a float tank cost?
Short answer — roughly $18 – 43K.
The slightly longer answer — listen to today’s episode.
Show Resources
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Alright, welcome, everybody. Our question today from one of our listeners is: “How much is a sensory deprivation tank?”
Ashkahn: Okay. How much does a float tank coast, huh? It’s a big range, right? I think the full scope of the range, I would say, is probably $10 000 at the lowest to $80 000 at the highest, for a commercial tank. There’s a tank, there’s the Zen Tent, which is $1,900 something. But that’s not really made for commercial use.
Graham: Right. So I guess just to clarify; I assume, since this is a show for commercial float center owners, that this is more on the commercial side. On the commercial side, about $10,000 to $80,000, from the very lowest to the very highest.
And so then the more median range in there, the average range of tanks that people are investing in, what do you think those are?
Ashkahn: There’s only a handful around the $10,000 range, and there’s I think an even smaller handful in that higher $70-$80,000 range. So, really, the bulk of them are somewhere between 20 and 40. Maybe slightly under 20k and 40k, and slightly over 40k, like 17-43k or something is gonna be the large majority of commercial float tanks out there.
Graham: Yeah, I think $17,000 to $43,000 was actually weirdly the numbers that I had in my head. And that’s also for getting commercial set up for the filtration side of things, too.
There are some of these tanks that you can get that have the lower priced models and the higher priced ones, or ones that are meant for home use and ones that are more for commercial settings. So that price range also includes that backside, too; the filtration system and everything that you’d need to be able to put in.
Ashkahn: Yeah, there’s one or two manufacturers out there that will even just sell a tub and you can kind of build the rest of it, so we’re not exactly counting those into this list.
Graham: I’d even say that the shipping and installation is kind of worked into that, too, or if you work that in, maybe it goes just a tiny bit higher.
Ashkahn: Those are good things to consider. I mean, if you’re buying a float tank, those are the things that you might not be quite expecting right off the bat and can vary a lot from tank to tank. Like, if you’re buying a tank that’s being manufactured down the street from you versus being manufactured on a different continent. The shipping cost is probably gonna be different across those two models.
Some manufacturers require for you to pay for installers to come out, so two people will come out and be there and install the thing and teach you how to do it. Other ones will send you the equipment and you can install it yourself.
Graham: I should say that literally before doing this episode, we went and looked at our own tank comparison chart to get a sense for exactly where those numbers were. I totally recommend you go to Float Tank Solutions and download the tank comparison chart and actually get a good look at exactly what these tanks are, and kind of the full range there. You can actually view all the individual units in addition to just having this broad view of price.
Ashkahn: Outside of that, it’s really hard to break it down much further. You might think that cabins are more expensive than pod-style tanks, and I feel like that can be true. You definitely see more cabins in the higher end than you do in the lower end, but there are some cabins out there that are in that $17-18k range.
And there are some tank or pod models out there that are in the $30K-something range, so that’s not necessarily a completely true statement, either.
Graham: And I think that’s all there is to say about that.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Alright. Ship it.
Graham: Lick it and stick it.
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Latest Blog Posts
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Opening up a float center is a lot like climbing a mountain. Even if you can see the peak, it’s a lot further away than you think, and when you finally get there, the journey and the destination usually end up being different than previously assumed.
In this post we’ll lay out a general process and timeline of what you may encounter on your path, from initial idea to actually operating a center.
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So you’re thinking about using volunteers in your float center?
Before we clarify what a “volunteer” actually means, we’ll first explore why a float center might be considering them in the first place. While it can be a way to provide floats to people who are otherwise unable to pay, the impulse to bring in volunteers can also stem from a desire to get some sort of free labor (later in this post we’ll dive into why you can’t actually do this, but it’s important to recognize that the instinct is understandable, especially when you have someone lined up and willing to work for free).
In addition to a desired boost in overall productivity, it’s also a way to invite more people into your center to experience what you do. Some customers actually want to help out and see what happens behind the scenes at a center.
Floating and Athletics, a Strong Relationship
One of the beautiful things about the float tank is that it serves to rejuvenate the whole person. — the body, mind, heart.
Broadly speaking, it’s a tool for homeostasis, an ideal environment that supports balance, health, and growth. This piece will look specifically at floating and athletics. For anyone who defines themselves as an athlete, or as a general pursuant of athletic endeavors, the float tank can be a powerful asset.
In this post, I’ll discuss individual athletes who float and how to look at this from a marketing perspective. I’ll also discuss past and present research, and share some thoughts on how the relationship between the athletic and floating communities might continue to unfold.
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I think it’s time we addressed the giant metaphorical elephant in the salty metaphorical room — there are lots of exaggerated and untrue claims about the benefits of floating being spread around the industry.
Some are anecdotal, some are only half true, and some are just patently false. Floating has historically had a strong oral tradition tied to it — the practice has survived through word-of-mouth, one passionate floater teaching another everything they know. The unfortunate thing about this is that the information disseminated can’t be reliably tested or shared with others on a broader scale. You can’t use “my buddy Chris” as a source for a health benefit of float tanks in a newspaper article, much less for a research paper.
Now that we’re becoming a bit more mainstream, we thought it would be nice to add some clarity to what we should and shouldn’t be telling people about these difficult-to-understand, saliferous containers.
